The second meaning can be excluded because when Moses actually makes the idol it says he makes a serpent of bronze. So, it is apparently a poisonous snake.

So how did moses make a "fiery serpent"? Why, he made it out of brass:

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And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole...--Num21:9

just like a common idol. Note, the word for serpent here is "nachash", which was used in num 21:7, when speaking of the fiery serpents that bit all the jooz. In that case the "fiery serpents" was "seraph nachash", where seraph meant "fiery". It's a little redundant there.

How is it different from an idol? I think the simplest answer is it isn't. More evidence that the yhwh cult grew out of canaanite polytheism/ henotheism.

Aside, I find it funny that yhwh would send poisonous snakes after the jooz and then tell them to make a magic idol to cure them of snakebite. So much for a god that just wants people to love him. This yhwh guy used poisonous snakes to coerce obedience and drive people back to Moses. Makes Tony Soprano look like a choirboy.

Some devout Muslims take this "no idols" thing literally and don't make images that resemble living things created by god. So no accurate renderings of humans, plants, animals. No images of Muhammed or Jesus or Mary or any other holy person, either. Most Islamic art uses the Arabic script, geometric figures and stylized plants and flowers. Only Asian and some Persian Muslims use images of people or the natural world.

But modern Christians are always trying to bend the rules and slip stuff past Jehovah. Naughty, naughty. Instead of being lawyers looking for the loophole, why not err on the side of assuming the bible really means what it says? God is the word and the word is with god, right? It's all divinely inspired, every last mistranslated syllable of it. Stop interpreting like you live in the modern world, or something, just because it is too hard. Be like the Puritans and the Amish, goddamit. Suck it up.

No images means no images! The Sabbath is the Sabbath! Women shut the eff up in church! Burn those unbelievers and stone those disrespectful children. Full stop, end of story.

(Because if they tried to do that, most people would realize it is all impossible to follow and absurd to try, and become Unitarians, Buddhists and atheists instead.)

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When all of Cinderella's finery changed back at midnight, why didn't the shoes disappear? What's up with that?

I'm not changing the meaning of words but I'm going to argue that it doesn't matter if you use my definition or yours.

I'm sure you think that your God is omniscient (1 John 3:20). He knows the beginning and the end. So YHWH tells Moses to make a fiery brass serpent to put on a post. If you believe YHWH is omniscient then He still is instructing Moses to make a graven image according to Bings definition of graven image ("a carving representing a god"). YHWH is omniscient so he obviously knows that the Jews are going to be offering incense to this "idol" (2 Kings 18:4). So basically, YHWH instructed Moses to make an idol that the Jews would later burn incense to.

Now ask yourself this. Why would the Jews be burning incense to this fiery brass serpent? Who is the only person that the Jews should have been burning incense to? Could it be that this idol was "representing a god"? Hezekiah did "right in the sight of the Lord" (2 Kings 18:3) in breaking the fiery serpent to pieces.

Now ask yourself if your God and His revealed word is contradictory.

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"The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race, have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion."~Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)

Since the thread drifted onto idols, this seems the apropos point for this.

Isn't a crucifix an idol? A cross as a symbol of Xianity could be considered an idol, couldn't it? So including Jesus pinned to the cross makes it very much an idol, right?

A Catholic priest (and Navy chaplain) I knew some years ago, when we were still going to church pretty regularly, once got himself in a bit of trouble with the local fundy bible-thumpers when he preached a sermon about how so many "Christians" out there were so fixated on the literal truth of every word in the Bible, and put such stock into John 3:16 that they never dared look outside or beyond it that they were, as he put it, "nothing but idolaters" themselves for basically valuing a book above living a real life.

He did tend toward a fairly Universalist philosophy overall, though, and was the only priest I ever remember who made me actually look forward to hearing his homilies every week.

Jesus did not reveal his second coming , not necessarily because he did not know, but because think of it this way. If your parents were out one weekend and you were left home alone. They told you "don`t do anything we wouldn`t want while we are gone, because we can be back at ANY time. Not just Sunday night." Well odds are the child would be hesitant to throw his party. However, if they said :"We`ll be back Sunday at 11 PM, don`t do anything bad." The child may just throw his party Friday night and clean everything up in the long time he has before his parents get back. He didnt reveal it because he didn`t want us to procrastinate in preparing ourselves for heaven.

Jesus did not reveal his second coming , not necessarily because he did not know, but because think of it this way. If your parents were out one weekend and you were left home alone. They told you "don`t do anything we wouldn`t want while we are gone, because we can be back at ANY time. Not just Sunday night." Well odds are the child would be hesitant to throw his party. However, if they said :"We`ll be back Sunday at 11 PM, don`t do anything bad." The child may just throw his party Friday night and clean everything up in the long time he has before his parents get back. He didnt reveal it because he didn`t want us to procrastinate in preparing ourselves for heaven.

So when he said only the father knows he was lying?If Jesus doesnt come back during the party then he wont know that we were partying?Is Jesus trying to catch us partying?When my parents went away for the weekend, they actually did stuff, what is Jesus doing?When my parents went away for the weekend they left me and my sisters with people they trusted, not the devil. Who has control over this fallen world?When my parents left me alone for the weekend they left me money AND food to eat to be sure I wouldnt starve, what did Jesus do to ensure that starving kids ate? (yes its a trick question)When my parents came back home from being away, and they found the cigarette butts and empty beer cans, I got grounded for a finite amount of time. Why does Jesus plan on burning me forever?

I'll be honest, friend, it sounds like my parents are far greater parents than Jesus. But I may be wrong. Can you explain how Jesus would be considered better than my parents at parenting considering all that I just posted?

Jesus did not reveal his second coming , not necessarily because he did not know, but because think of it this way. If your parents were out one weekend and you were left home alone. They told you "don`t do anything we wouldn`t want while we are gone, because we can be back at ANY time. Not just Sunday night." Well odds are the child would be hesitant to throw his party. However, if they said :"We`ll be back Sunday at 11 PM, don`t do anything bad." The child may just throw his party Friday night and clean everything up in the long time he has before his parents get back. He didnt reveal it because he didn`t want us to procrastinate in preparing ourselves for heaven.

"The Trinity" (a concoction of the church, not found in the bible) is just another spin tactic, in the long line of Christian spin. It is an attempt to rationalize away the glaring and obvious contradiction that exists in those pages.

-The bible says the father is God-The bible says the son is God-The bible says the holy spirit is God-Yet, the bible says there is only one God

So, instead of admitting that the bible clearly and flatly contradicts itself (which would mean admitting it is NOT inerrant), Christians attempt to justify the statements (due to their pre-commitment to it) by claiming that the three are "one God in 3 persons". But why do they believe these texts are authoritative in the first place?! It's really absurd. Starting with your conclusion is bass-ackwards.

The clearest and easiest way this has been explained to me is like this. This is not an apologetic or philosophical argument - just a way i have heard it explained many times which hopefully can add to the discussion.

H20 - water is one thing. Yet we understand water in 3 forms - liquid, ice, and steam. Each is H20, yet we experience it in different ways.

God - God is one. Yet we understand God in 3 ways - Father, Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit. Each is God, yet we experience God in different ways.

I saw a man make that argument in Bill Maher's Religulous. It's clever, and I think it serves to describe the trinity as well as any other concept or theory. The issue is with the portrayal of the three 'aspects' of god in the Bible.

The new testament makes a compelling case that Jesus was a separate, subordinate being. He refers to god as his father, and speaks of him as a separate entity. At one point, when the priests accuse him of making himself equal to god, he wonders aloud why it bothered them that he said "I am the son of god." But there are other verses that can be used to make the case that they're one and the same (John 1:1, for example). And there is relatively little mention of the holy spirit in the Bible. It is not always referred to as a person, such as the times when groups of people are "anointed" with it. And its "name" is really a general description and less a formal name. The holy spirit is, IMO, poorly defined in the Bible, and is not clearly a being or entity of its own.

The trinity was conceptualized long after the Bible was written. And therefore there is no clear reference or definition for it in the Bible, and centuries have been spent trying to create something that wasn't there in the first place. The fact that it's such a convoluted idea in and of itself simply makes the whole exercise that much more absurd.

H20 - water is one thing. Yet we understand water in 3 forms - liquid, ice, and steam. Each is H20, yet we experience it in different ways.

God - God is one. Yet we understand God in 3 ways - Father, Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit. Each is God, yet we experience God in different ways.

I take it the holy spirit is vapor. So which is liquid and which is ice?

That is a poor analogy because it involves physical states of matter. Also, you are talking about the alleged omnipotent creator of all being. To say that we experience it in different ways is silly. That we need to put three different labels on it indicates we really have no idea what we are talking about when we talk about god.

It makes much more sense to accept that Christianity has polytheistic origins like other ancient faiths. Then the three in the trinity or even more different god-beings described throughout the bible are just like the Hindu or Greek or Norse pantheon. War god, father god, love god, hero god, creator god, jealous god, hippy god, healer god, son god, protector god, mother god. Just with fewer names.

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When all of Cinderella's finery changed back at midnight, why didn't the shoes disappear? What's up with that?

That is a poor analogy because it involves physical states of matter. Also, you are talking about the alleged omnipotent creator of all being. To say that we experience it in different ways is silly. That we need to put three different labels on it indicates we really have no idea what we are talking about when we talk about god.

Why is it silly? We talk about many things that don't have physical stats of matter, and yet use our physical experiences to talk about them. When we talk about proving things we often try to corroborate different ways to experience something to show its authenticity. "Wind" for example. We can't see it - be we can see it's effect. Wind has no temperature - but we experience the cold or warmth that is carried in it. Wind has no smell, no taste, and no physical matter to speak of - yet we talk about how we experience the feeling of wind, the smells of wind, and the tastes carried in the wind. The way we experience things is paramount to our understanding of things. No one would say the wind doesn't exist.

We experience God in many ways. The Bible is writings about people's experience of God and in them God is talked about in many different ways. Now the trinity refers to God in more than just experience - in other words this is just a small part of it. The trinity is also about relationship, about love, about the incarnation (Jesus coming into humanity), and about spiritual things which most nonbelievers would immediately refuse as an answer.

So to stay with the analogy - this is simply a way to talk about how and why Christians refer to God as the trinity. The question is not how can 1+1+1=3, the question is solve A+B+C=God.

I will however concede that humanity doesn't and cannot have the ability to fully understand or not-understand what we are talking about when we talk about God the omnipotent creator.

Anyone can understand the qualities of natural phenomena, no "belief" needed.

If human beings can't understand god, then it makes no sense to punish or persecute people for not understanding god. And it makes no sense to try to tell someone that god wants this, that or the other thing. How does anyone know what god wants? Because we cannot understand anything for sure about god.

And analogies to physical phenomena fail because we can detect physical phenomena, even if we have to use technology.

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When all of Cinderella's finery changed back at midnight, why didn't the shoes disappear? What's up with that?

H20 - water is one thing. Yet we understand water in 3 forms - liquid, ice, and steam. Each is H20, yet we experience it in different ways.

God - God is one. Yet we understand God in 3 ways - Father, Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit. Each is God, yet we experience God in different ways.

I think I understand what you're saying here i.e God is one but we view him in three different ways/forms. I remember believing something similar to this a while back and it was very satisfying at the time. While I do believe that this line of thought is in the right direction, it isn't quite there yet. The problem you're going to end up facing is the substantial distinctiveness between the three persons that your view doesn't account for.

To explain let me use your analogy[1]:Ice can become liquid and liquid can become vapor. But the Father never becomes the Son, nor does the Son ever become the Holy Spirit. They are fundamentally distinct from one another regardless of how we may or may not perceive them.If you say you are seeing/understanding one thing in three different ways then the only true distinction between Father, Son and Spirit exists within your own perception. In reality, there is still only one thing. The Trinity in contrast to this is about pointing out three things, calling them three things and then incontestably stringing them together as part of the immutable nature of the single omnipotent God. And the irony of all this is that while the Trinity seeks to describe the immutable nature of God, your explanation of the Trinity would deny his immutable nature.As screwtape said:

-snip-...you are talking about the alleged omnipotent creator of all being... That we need to put three different labels on it indicates we really have no idea what we are talking about...

But like I said, it's a step in the right direction. So while this view and your analogy might make enough sense to appear convincing, it ultimately fails because it describes God and the Christ as perceived by the Christian, making no real affirmative statements about what they are in reality.

Why is it silly? We talk about many things that don't have physical stats of matter, and yet use our physical experiences to talk about them. When we talk about proving things we often try to corroborate different ways to experience something to show its authenticity. "Wind" for example. We can't see it - be we can see it's effect. Wind has no temperature - but we experience the cold or warmth that is carried in it. Wind has no smell, no taste, and no physical matter to speak of - yet we talk about how we experience the feeling of wind, the smells of wind, and the tastes carried in the wind. The way we experience things is paramount to our understanding of things. No one would say the wind doesn't exist.

We experience God in many ways. The Bible is writings about people's experience of God and in them God is talked about in many different ways. Now the trinity refers to God in more than just experience - in other words this is just a small part of it. The trinity is also about relationship, about love, about the incarnation (Jesus coming into humanity), and about spiritual things which most nonbelievers would immediately refuse as an answer.

So to stay with the analogy - this is simply a way to talk about how and why Christians refer to God as the trinity. The question is not how can 1+1+1=3, the question is solve A+B+C=God.

I will however concede that humanity doesn't and cannot have the ability to fully understand or not-understand what we are talking about when we talk about God the omnipotent creator.

Wesley, First, thanks for responding and welcome to WWGHA Forums. As you may have already noticed, many of us are former believers and used to believe like you - until later discovering these views to be irrational. With that said, let me address at least two points you have made above.

1. Your wind analogy is another faulty one (in addition to the faulty water analogy - which I myself used to ascribe). Wind does in fact have "physical matter". It is, in fact, physical and it can be demonstrated as such. Is it your contention that non-believers in your religion think that we must always see things with our eyes to justify thinking they are real? I don't think one scientist I've ever heard of thinks this way. Your analogies fail because both water and wind can be DEMONSTRATED. The alleged deity "thing" named "Yahweh" that you believe in cannot.

2. You made the statement that, "humanity doesn't and cannot have the ability to fully understand or not-understand what we are talking about when we talk about God the omnipotent creator". There are at least two major problems here. For one, you've contradicted yourself quite directly. Which is it? Does humanity have the capacity to understand this "God", or does it not? Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, if humanity does not have the capacity to understand this "thing" then why are you believing in it?? Can you see how this sounds like class A credulity? You have a presumption that your bible is "the word of God" (indeed a pre-commitment) and now you're trying to defend it. But how is that a good thing? Don't you find this approach just a little bit backwards?

Finally, anyone can makeup just about any term (such as "God the omnipotent creator") and then claim that, "Well, it's real but we just can't understand it." What if I said, "Hey, Blark the Magnificent Schmarbelfarben is real! But you just can't understand cause you're not like him." Wouldn't you be thinking, "WTF? Is this guy nuts?" So too, we find these assertions about your deity equally as preposterous and nuts. Can you see why?

magicmiles: The original statement was poorly-worded. Fully understand or not-understand isn't totally clear on its meaning. So median asked if humans have the capacity to understand God, or if they don't, to clarify what he meant.

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Nullus In Verba, aka "Take nobody's word for it!" If you can't show it, then you don't know it.

<snip>H20 - water is one thing. Yet we understand water in 3 forms - liquid, ice, and steam. Each is H20, yet we experience it in different ways.God - God is one. Yet we understand God in 3 ways - Father, Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit. Each is God, yet we experience God in different ways.

Not at the same time. You cannot have H20 in all the three states at the same time. Since you made this analogy, mind explaining when this god is Father, Son and Holy Spirit? And why the need for the three different forms?

I know of a few triple changer Decepticons, they change forms for a reason. I see no reason for the omnipotent to have this limitation.

Not at the same time. You cannot have H20 in all the three states at the same time. Since you made this analogy, mind explaining when this god is Father, Son and Holy Spirit? And why the need for the three different forms?

I know of a few triple changer Decepticons, they change forms for a reason. I see no reason for the omnipotent to have this limitation.

What can Jesus do that YHWH can't?

The analogy also breaks down because it is much closer to being analogous to a pantheon of gods - I don't know if it makes sense to think of the 'phase of matter' of a single water molecule[1].

With a pantheon, you could sorta shoe-horn the analogy in there - 'Jesus' is when Zeus, Thor, and Loki are all being really nice to each other; 'God' is when Zeus, Omnipotus, and The Living Tribunal are all in a huff fighting with each other being angry; 'The Holy Spirit' is when Thor, Shaggy, and Daphne are in a more somber mood and feel like asking if C-A-T really spelled 'dog'.

Does someone more smarter than me actually know if phase-state applies to single molecules?

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"When we landed on the moon, that was the point where god should have come up and said 'hello'. Because if you invent some creatures, put them on the blue one and they make it to the grey one, you f**king turn up and say 'well done'."